en, there is not much choice between you. Why don't
you draw lots for her?"

"That wouldn't be right," said the Scarecrow.

"The girl should be permitted to choose her own husband," asserted
Polychrome. "You should both go to her and allow her to take her choice.
Then she will surely be happy."

"That, to me, seems a very fair arrangement," said the Tin Soldier.

"I agree to it," said the Tin Woodman, shaking the hand of his twin to
show the matter was settled. "May I ask your name, sir?" he continued.

"Before I was so cut up," replied the other, "I was known as Captain
Fyter, but afterward I was merely called 'The Tin Soldier.'"

"Well, Captain, if you are agreeable, let us now go to Nimmie Amee's
house and let her choose between us."

"Very well; and if we meet the Witch, we will both fight her--you with
your axe and I with my sword."

"The Witch is destroyed," announced the Scarecrow, and as they walked
away he told the Tin Soldier of much that had happened in the Land of Oz
since he had stood rusted in the forest.

"I must have stood there longer than I had imagined," he said
thoughtfully.

The Workshop of Ku-Klip

[Illustration]

CHAPTER 17

It was not more than a two hours' journey to the house where Nimmie Amee
had lived, but when our travelers arrived there they found the place
deserted. The door was partly off its hinges, the roof had fallen in at
the rear and the interior of the cottage was thick with dust. Not only
was the place vacant, but it was evident that no one had lived there for
a long time.

[Illustration]

"I suppose," said the Scarecrow, as they all stood looking wonderingly
at the ruined house, "that after the Wicked Witch was destroyed, Nimmie
Amee became lonely and went somewhere else to live."

"One could scarcely expect a young girl to live all alone in a forest,"
added Woot. "She would want company, of course, and so I believe she has
gone where other people live."

"And perhaps she is still crying her poor little heart out because no
tin man comes to marry her," suggested Polychrome.

"Well, in that case, it is the clear duty of you two tin persons to seek
Nimmie Amee until you find her," declared the Scarecrow.

"I do not know where to look for the girl," said the Tin Soldier, "for I
am almost a stranger to this part of the country."

"I was born here," said the Tin Woodman, "but the forest has few
inhabitants except the wild beasts. I cannot think of anyo